


Traceroute of a Retrieval Specialist

by facetofcathy



Category: Leverage
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Character of Color, Leverage Exchange, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-20
Updated: 2009-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 11:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Eliot got from there to here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traceroute of a Retrieval Specialist

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1.
> 
> Written for Carina Scott for [Leverage Exchange](http://community.livejournal.com/leveragexchange) (a Livejournal Community)

_Boston_

"I feel a little guilty," Alec said.

Eliot didn't answer, he was still busy checking out his present.

"Are you listening at all?"

"I've got a chainsaw." Eliot could feel the idiotic grin stretching his face, and he just didn't care.

"I know that. I gave it to you, remember?"

"It's awesome."

"Okay, man, when the toolgasm is over, you let me know, and we can talk about my issues."

"You have issues?" Eliot was pretty sure that wasn't true. Alec wasn't an issues guy. He was an easy going, happy geek-boy—most of the time.

"I have emotions, deeply felt, manly emotions" Alec said and faked a sniffle.

"The last time I saw you actually get angry was when someone called your fairy a bad name."

"Elf, Eliot, it's an Elf. And the rule is, you're hating on my avatar, you're hating on me."

"Okay, if I ask why you feel guilty, can we stop talking about your unhealthy obsession with cartoon characters?"

Alec made a sucking noise through his teeth and clutched at his heart. Eliot smirked and possibly petted his chainsaw a little bit more.

"Oh, no," Alec said, shaking his head vigorously, "No, no, no. You did that on purpose, you can't get me going that easy. Nice try, but you are denied."

Eliot shrugged; he knew where all Alec's buttons were, he'd get him the next time, and his easy acceptance of defeat got him a nice glare.

"To answer your question, I feel guilty about using just Cat 5e cable for Nate's place. I mean, for my secret lair here, of course, I used Cat 6. Even I think Cat 7 is a little OTT with the present technology, although there is a school of thought that infrastructure should always exceed available hardware, but—what is that look for?"

"Your secret lair?"

"It is."

"It's the penthouse. In the same building that Nate lives in. How secret is a penthouse right above your boss?"

"You need a special key for the elevator," Alec mumbled.

Eliot shook his head. "Does have a nice kitchen, though."

Alec grinned at him. "Speaking of, wait 'til I tell you what I did to Nate's fridge."

"Later, let's get in there and do this," Eliot said, hefting his chainsaw and grinning like a madman.

 

_Karachi, Four Months Earlier_

"Spencer, just the man I want to see."

Eliot turned and eyed the man who stood in the doorway—dark suit, expensive designer sunglasses, shoes shined to mirrors. He wondered if the guy had driven up in a car with Embassy plates, too. "Mr. Smith?" Eliot hazarded.

"It's Jones this week, Spencer. You ready to move out?"

"Mr. Green, here, is just going over the intel," Eliot said, nodding to a guy who bore an uncanny resemblance to one Lt. Washburn, formerly to be found with the NATO forces in Croatia. He wasn't a Lieutenant anymore if he was here in plain clothes, working for Mr. Jones.

"Great, that's great. You have your insertion plan? Know your target?"

"I'm breaking in to the office of United Petroleum, located in one of the most secure buildings in Karachi, and I'm pulling the hard drive from a laptop in the office of Tony Furtado and replacing it with the one Green just gave me," Eliot said and tried not to miss the days when no one thought phrases like insertion plan were ever necessary.

"Excellent, excellent," Jones said and rubbed his hands together. "When you're all clear report back to Base Camp Delta to debrief."

Eliot watched Jones leave again and tipped a look at Green. "Base Camp Delta?"

"He means here, Spencer."

"This is a room in the Sheraton."

"Mr. Jones likes code names."

"Ah. Hey, Green," Eliot said, resisting the urge to make air quotes on the name, "who is this Furtado guy anyway, he a local?"

Washburn turned around and gave Eliot a long look. "He's a guy doing his job, Spencer."

"Fine, fine. Point taken."

"You need to go over the procedure for switching out the drives again?"

Eliot took the change in subject in stride; he shouldn't have been asking questions anyway, not with these guys. "No, I'm good."

"Yeah, you've picked up a few tricks in the last decade or so."

"Gotta move with the times, man. How about you? Things any different in your line of work these days?"

"New man at the top," Washburn said, and he sounded less bland than he usually did, the closest he'd come to expressing an opinion on Presidential politics. "They've stopped sending us translators that only know Arabic, but other than that, business as usual."

"Yeah," Eliot said. "Same old, same old. Get in, get it done, get out."

"Easy for you to say, Spencer, some of us don't ever get out."

 

_Boston_

"Damn, that was fun," Eliot said, and he revved the chainsaw again, just because he could. "I don't even care that you made me wear those stupid safety goggles.

"It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye," Alec said and dissolved into laughter again.

Eliot did not know why Alec found that line so funny, but he'd heard it at least ten times in the last hour. "This secret lair of yours have a shower?"

"Help yourself," Alec said, and waved Eliot toward the bathroom.

When he was done cleaning up, he shook the worst of the dust off his jeans, rifled Alec's closet for a tee shirt that wasn't in a colour that would make his eyes bleed, and wandered back out to the smell of popcorn.

"You want to hang? I've got movies, classic TV, Xbox, anything you want." Alec was doing a Vanna White by the entertainment centre.

Eliot gave him his best hard stare. "No Doctor Who, no Buffy, no cartoons and nothing that started out as a comic book."

"You are a hard man, Eliot Spencer, and I fear for the state of your soul. What kind of person doesn't like Buffy?"

"It's that guy, the emo-boy vampire always moping around, he creeps me right out."

Alec shook his head sadly. "Movies then? Or, I know, I have all the episodes of _I Spy_ on DVD, the series, not the unfortunate cinematic mistake of more recent vintage."

"Sounds good, you got any food in this place beyond popcorn?"

"Define food?" Alec said and picked one of the multitude of remotes off the cluttered coffee table.

"Not Twinkies, or anything with a similar shelf life. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of tech genius?"

"Twinkies are food, and I am a tech god. Sit your ass down." Alec patted the sofa beside him.

Eliot wasn't sure just what _hanging_ entailed these days, but he plunked down on the sofa nice and close to Alec. He might actually get some popcorn that way. "If you're a tech god, why don't you have a universal remote?"

"Because I am working on my very own Jarvis, it's in beta right now, but it should be ready to go live soon."

"Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"That would be way to much to hope for," Alec said and grabbed one of the other remotes to dim the lights.

Sometime later, Eliot said, "Should I feel dirty for thinking Bill Cosby is hot?"

"Hell, yes. Very dirty." Alec nodded solemnly.

"Alec," Eliot said and then stopped.

"You need to be rebooted?"

"Funny." Eliot examined a scrape on his thumb he didn't remember getting. "Have you ever been caught hacking?"

"Of course."

"Really?"

"You ever lost a fight?" Alec demanded.

"Yeah, okay. Point taken. I just, there's someone I want to trace—check up on—but it's likely pretty risky. If you got caught—"

"Yes," Alec said.

"What?"

"Yes, I'll do it."

"I haven't told you what it is."

"Doesn't matter. If you need to know ..."

Eliot turned back to watch Culp and Cosby snark back and forth for a bit. "I'm not sure that I _want_ to know," he said and then aimed a kick at the coffee table. "Never work for the government."

"I'll introduce you to my Nana, she'd agree with you," Alec said, all smiles again. "She worked for the post office for thirty years. She used to say that once they've got you, you never get out."

"Would you?" Eliot asked.

"What, introduce you?"

"Yeah."

Alec stared at the screen for a long time, smile fading away. "She wouldn't understand," he said quietly, smile faded away.

 

_Karachi, Four Months Earlier_

Getting in to the United Petroleum building was a piece of cake, even without Parker and Hardison backing him up. Eliot suppressed that thought; he was back on his own again, the way it was supposed to be. Eliot Spencer was not a team player. He got in, he did the job, he got out.

Switching out the drives was easy, but there were a few tense moments getting back out and avoiding the security, guys who had all the telltales of Blackwater employees, but all the same, Eliot was back at the Sheraton in under two hours.

Jones was waiting, alone this time. "Nice work, Spencer," he said. "I like you, you don't ask questions, and you get the job done."

"Yeah, that's me."

"Money's transferred." Jones waved at a computer screen, presumably showing proof. Eliot ignored it. After a pause, Jones handed over an envelope and said, "Your plane ticket home. We'll be in touch when we need your particular skills again, Mr. Spencer."

Eliot bared his teeth, took the envelope and headed for the stairwell. He burned the ticket in a trash can outside the hotel kitchen, trailed out the back door with the rest of the night shift staff, and crushed his cell phone under his boot heel.

An hour later, Ryan Legget boarded a train to Lahore, and almost 24 hours later, Jack Chase caught a flight to London. Eliot hadn't gotten where he was trusting the guys who didn't want you asking questions.

 

_Boston_

"You found a place to live yet?" Alec asked.

"Got a room at the Sheraton. Makes a good home base," Eliot said. They'd drifted closer on the sofa until they were pressed together, shoulder to shoulder.

"I've got lots of room here."

"Yeah? You make the same offer to Parker?"

Alec looked away again, which was answer enough. "She told me to ask again sometime," he said finally.

"You planning to?"

"Maybe, I don't know, man. All I know is that I missed you guys. All of you guys, and I don't want to let you slip away again, and I know we were never anything but," Alec waved his hands around in a chaotic spiral, as good a description as any for what they were.

Eliot didn't know what to call it either. Eliot Spencer did not have boyfriends, he had guys he fucked when the mood struck, just like he had women he fucked when they were both of a mind to. He was not a team player, not a guy who settled down. He was a guy who decided when he was leaving. He was the guy who got in, got the job done, and got out.

"I've never lived in a secret lair before," he said.

"Beats the hell out of the Sheraton."

 

_Los Angeles, One Year Earlier_

"Eliot," Hardison said, surprised. He hesitated with the door half open, his body blocking the open space.

Eliot leaned in, took a half step forward, and Hardison backed up just like Eliot knew he would. Eliot let a little more wolf into his grin. "This a bad time, Hardison?"

"No, no, man. Come on in."

Eliot brushed past Hardison and took a look around the place. He had all the toys, big screen, a cabinet of electronic game systems, amplifiers, DVD players and some things Eliot could only guess about. You couldn't take ten steps without tripping over another computer, or something that might one day be a computer. "I take it you agree with Nate?"

"I'm an agreeable guy," Hardison said, edging around so he wasn't between Eliot and the door.

"I mean the part where he says that just because we're the good guys, we can still have fun." Eliot gave Hardison a little up and down look. He wasn't looking for a lot of conversation here. Get in, get the job done and get out, that was the way he worked. He was completely willing to be obvious about what he was looking for.

"I take it you're not talking about a couple hours of Grand Theft Auto?"

"Cartoon cars really don't do it for me." Eliot stepped closer. "What I'm after isn't going to take a couple of hours, but I guarantee it'll be fun."

Hardison surprised him a little, he held his ground.

They never made it out of the living room. Eliot was fine with that, and Hardison looked as good half out of his clothes as he did in them. Damn, but the man had big hands, callused up in places from the lifting he had to do to fill out his geek-boy clothes the way he did. His legs went on for miles, too, which was just the way Eliot liked them. He never shut up, of course, but when Eliot was buried deep and having his fun, what came out of his mouth was pretty fucking entertaining.

"We should think about doing that again sometime," Eliot said as he was leaving.

 

_Boston_

"This lair of yours have a bedroom?" Eliot said, tipping his head back against the sofa to look over at Alec.

"It does, as you well know. Don't think I don't recognize my own clothes."

"Busted," Eliot said and laughed.

Alec levered himself out of the grip of the sofa cushions and grabbed Eliot's hand, towed him to the bedroom.

As soon as Alec let go, Eliot pulled off the borrowed shirt. "Here," he said, "never let it be said, I don't give back what I borrow."

"There's a fine line between borrow and steal," Alec said, as he snatched the shirt out of Eliot's hand and tossed it over his shoulder. "How be I borrow those jeans of yours? I'm a gentleman, I'll even wash them before I give them back."

"That's a deal no sane man would turn down." Eliot leaned back a little, cocked his hips out and looked up at Alec. He popped the top button on his jeans, watched Alec watching him.

"I've missed you, Eliot," he said, all heat and intent. "Missed your smart mouth, missed your damn hair all over everything, missed your cocky little poses."

"Oh yeah," Eliot said and peeled the jeans back, shoved his underwear out of the way. "How's this pose?" He stroked himself, and Alec didn't say another word, just kept his eyes on the show while he quickly stripped down. Eliot wasn't planning on saying any of it aloud, but he had a list of things he'd been missing too. Those legs, for a start, that skinny and perfect ass, all those hard planes and tight curves and so fucking young, all on display for him, his for the taking.

"Get your ass on the bed, Eliot," Alec said, and he stalked forward, and Eliot backed up a pace. "I'm going to suck you until you're ready to beg for it to stop, or maybe never stop."

"I was thinking I was going to have to beg you to start," Eliot said, and Alec glared at him.

He had said he'd missed Eliot's smart mouth, so he had no cause for complaint when he'd gotten what he'd wanted. Eliot tipped up his chin, smiled nice and slow.

Alec just pointed, and gave him a long look.

Eliot got his ass on the bed. It was quite some time before he got out again.


End file.
